Air India to fly A-330 to Seoul, Osaka

27 September, 2007:

Australia is out, Seoul is in. National carrier Air India has postponed plans of launching a flight to Australia and instead plans to utilize the Airbus A-330 aircraft to operate flights to Seoul and Osaka, said a report.

The airline, which is to induct two Airbus A-330 aircraft, plans to use them to not only connect South Korea and Japan but also to operate flights between Chennai and Singapore. The flights to Melbourne and Johannesburg have been placed on the backburner for the time being. Said an Air India official, "We will fly to these cities later on, and as of now we have decided to consolidate operations by operating to Seoul and Osaka through Hong Kong with the A-330 aircraft." The airline’s operations to Seoul and Osaka are currently undertaken using an Airbus A-310.

Air India is also mulling over the possibility of making use of the first Canadian regional jet aircraft to fly on the Delhi-Raipur-Vizag-Chennai sector. The report added that Air India might introduce a daily return flight on the Kolkata-Bangalore-Hyderabad and Chennai-Kochi-Chennai sector apart from increasing the frequency by operating a fifth daily flight between Delhi and Bangalore and a fourth daily flight between Delhi and Hyderabad.

It has been reported earlier that the carrier would also operate three times a week between Chennai-Goa and Kuwait.